Despite being closer to France, the jet turned around and headed back to the US, infuriating passengers who called for retribution against the bathroom bandit.

The chaos was captured by talk show host Andy Cohen, who had the misfortune to be trapped on board the plane. He chronicled the events on Instagram Story - and like the passenger, he held nothing back.

Passengers vowed retribution.
Photo credit: Andy Cohen / Instagram

"How's this? We were two hours outside of Europe, somebody pooped or put something down the toilet that it didn't go and broke the toilets. We had to turn around to fix the f**king toilet," he told his followers.

"To the person on the Delta flight to Nice that put a foreign object down the toilet... tell me who you are because we're going to find you... I think they should sacrifice themselves at the beginning of the flight."

The flight arrived back in New York after a seven-and-a-half hour round-trip.

Another passenger, Wes Lowenfield, took to Twitter to share a photograph of the flight map.

"Have you ever taken a u-turn in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean?" he wrote sarcastically.

"With Delta you can experience the joys of a nine hour tour to nowhere and back. And then you get to wait another day to try again!"